Hey fellow board members here is some recent news about Tracy Lawrence.

Sincerely,

Patrick 

 

Tracy Lawrence Reclaims His Career


He recently launched Rocky Comfort Records and is optimistic about the future.
Thursday, September 21, 2006







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Click here to watch Tracy Lawrence's video "Paint Me A Birmingham"

The Bradenton Herald (Bradenton, Fla.)

Country music fans are a loyal bunch. The same cannot be said about the men and women who determine who will be the next Nashville star. The suits on Music Row are a ruthless gang responsible for acts like unceremoniously dumping Johnny Cash during the 1980s.

So it should come as no surprise that singer Tracy Lawrence was put out to pasture after the new millennium found him unable to produce hits like he did in the 1990s, a decade that found him living large in Music City.

During the Clinton years, Lawrence peppered the airwaves with more than a dozen songs that reached No. 1 on Billboard's country chart including "Alibis," "Can't Break it to My Heart," "My Second Home," and "If the Good Die Young," all of which came from his 1993 album "Alibis" that sold more than a million copies. A large crowd is expected at the Dallas Bull in Tampa on Friday to hear Lawrence perform those familiar songs and a couple of new ones.

Dismissing a well-known name like Tracy Lawrence, who also co-writes much of his material, in favor of spending serious money on grooming an unknown seems a bit puzzling. However, it has been a growing trend in country music for more than a decade.

"They're about flavor of the month; the more established you are the more trouble you cause," Lawrence said during a recent phone interview. "The young artists are naive and just excited to get a shot at being a star."

The Texas native went on to recount being told that the major labels are only interested in an artist that can sell 1,000,000 copies of an album, a feat that is usually only accomplished by country artists with "crossover" appeal (and a decidedly pop sound) like Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and Rascal Flatts.

"Look at George Strait in the 1980s, he never sold a million copies of an album but he had a lot of gold ones" for sales of more than 500,000, Lawrence said. "The music business is broke. They spend a million bucks to break a new artist instead of letting artists evolve -- they have it all backwards."

Lawrence might sound bitter about his treatment at the hands of record label heads, but when the subject switched to the future, the singer was optimistic. He recently launched Rocky Comfort Records (RCR) and has a new album titled "For the Love" planned to come out this winter.

"My brother and I just decided it was time to make that step," Lawrence said. "A lot of guys who had hits in the past are having more success on their own instead of being on some big (record) label."

Lawrence recently issued the single "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" to country radio, which marks the first release for Rocky Comfort Records.

"I just love the message of it," Lawrence said. "It's a downhome country song about remembering where you came from."

Lawrence said the song is going over "really, really well" when he performs it in concert.

"Country fans stay with you a long time," he added. "There's such a wide age range of fans coming to the shows and singing the words to all the songs, it's just great."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.